This is a series that's been running in Daily Kos, of which four parts have appeared so far, apparently with more to come.
There are numerous hyperlinks in the original. The author rejects the term "fascism," preferring the clumsy "bush authoritarianism." Vaquero says it's got to be "bushismo", which says the same thing, but comes more trippingly from the tongue and with fewer keystrokes.
What is most interesting in some ways that comes out of this series is how it links blackwater with amway. yes.
The series really doesn't hit its stride until part 3, getting to the "prosperity gospel" -- god wants you to be rich . . . that is muchly part of blackwater prince's doctrine.
From part 1:
[ ...the essence of fascist states, the binding characteristic that existed in all fascist system, was that the state was supreme, or at least had primacy over all other institutions. A company like Blackwater, which takes money from federal tax revenues and provides military services for profit would most likely not exist in a fascist system. Instead, Blackwater represents the extension of a highly authoritarian force that’s an extension of the government, but it exists to turn a profit, and is ultimately not accountable to the federal government. Thus, there’s a form of plunder in which the state exists not to embody a national essence or nationalist strivings, not as a product of laws, but as a means of transferring wealth from the citizens to corporations and individuals largely free of the oversight to which citizens and elected officials are supposed to be able to exercise over government employees and the agencies of the federal government.
I will name this new system Bush Authoritarianism, although George W. Bush is not it’s originator and probably could not describe it with much coherence. In fact, it’s not a coherent ideology as much as a hodge-podge of ideas and movements that have been grafted together, mostly out of political expedience (primarily the need to secure financial and electoral support), greed, and zealotry. Most of these trends pre-date the ascension to the Presidency of George W. Bush. Some of these characteristics explain how the Bush administration came about, and others are an extension of the Bush coalition and the administration’s practice of governance. ]
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/10/7/202253/460
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/10/14/214424/81
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/10/21/202247/19
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/10/29/101446/82
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
If You're In NYC November 27 - "Listen Again" NYU Roundtable
This is a function connected to the Experience Music Project, the annual conference held in Seattle every spring. There's going to be food and drink and lots of opportunity to meet, greet and schmooze. Was invited to forward this invitation, so I'm not being indiscreet.
"Listen Again" NYU Roundtable Event Nov 27 @ 7:30 pm
The Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University cordially invites you to attend LISTEN AGAIN
A Roundtable Event on Pop Music, Past and Present with Today's Top Music Critics, Journalists and Scholars celebrating the new Duke University Press release Listen Again: a Momentary History of Pop Music, edited by Eric Weisbard.
FEATURING:
"Listen Again" NYU Roundtable Event Nov 27 @ 7:30 pm
The Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University cordially invites you to attend LISTEN AGAIN
A Roundtable Event on Pop Music, Past and Present with Today's Top Music Critics, Journalists and Scholars celebrating the new Duke University Press release Listen Again: a Momentary History of Pop Music, edited by Eric Weisbard.
FEATURING:
- David Brackett
- Franklin Bruno
- Daphne Carr
- Henry Chalfant
- Holly George-Warren
- Jason King
- W.T. Lhamon, Jr.
- Greil Marcus
- Benjamin Melendez
- Mark Anthony Neal
- Ned Sublette
- Steve Waksman
- Eric Weisbard
WHEN: TUESDAY NOVEMBER 27, 7:30-9:30 pm
WHERE: Studio 914, The Kimmel Center for University Life, New York University, 60 Washington Square South at LaGuardia Place and the South end of Washington Square Park www.nyu.edu/kimmel.center
Admission is free, but RSVP is required.
RESERVATION AND INFO LINE: (212) 992 8405
Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Venue is wheelchair-accessible, with a wheelchair-accessible bathroom.
Picture ID is required for entrance to the building.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Sometimes Your Heart Will Break
At the library this young man appeared, bewildered and puzzled. He wanted something but didn't have the communication skills to explain what it was. He was sent to the reference librarian, which today wasn't me, but as I was probably the oldest person around he assumed it was me.
He might have been 20. He wanted to know something about the Dominican Republic, but it took a while to figure out what it was. This was the story, as I finally got it:
He'd been in a taxi over the weekend and the driver had mentioned something that evidently hit the guy's curiosity organ hard. The driver had said something like the DR had the oldest medical school in this part of the world. He wanted to find out more information about that. For some reason this excited him deeply, though he's not a Dominican himself.
I just happened to know something on this order, because Vaquero shot a music video there for his "Cowboy Rumba" album, in the ruins of what was the first hospital in Santo Domingo's Old Town that contains the Western Hemisphere's first cathedral, first monastery, first hospital, first university, and its first court of law. "In declaring the city a world heritage site, UNESCO recognized Santo Domingo as the cradle of European civilization in the New World." I told him that Columbus's son had been charge there, while Columbus would go back to Europe looking for more money to fund further explorations (for pillage and rapine, nevermind).
This was the most difficult reference question I've ever answered because the guy's education had been so deficient. He hardly knew who Columbus was. His sense of geography nearly non-existant. A computer isn't the most helpful when it comes to maps for explaining these things, so we found an atlas in a book to assist spatial orientation. He had no idea what to do in a library.
But -- something had excited him, something about which he wanted to know more, and it brought him to a library! I hope in my attempts to figure out what it was he was looking for I didn't ruin that excitement. Finding a history around here that would focus on the Dominican Republic and its early years with the Columbus family isn't easy, whether in Spanish or English. His reading skills are low too. I looked for online things instead, and magazines like the National Geographic, that have lots of photos. Fortunately the library has the CD-ROM National Geographic. Over the years the magazine's done a fair amount on Santo Domingo (the capital of the DR). And he does know how to use CDs etc. So I think I left him with the means to look for whatever it was he was looking for. I don't know if I made him happier. But I hope his experience in the library was unthreatening and pleasant enough to have him come back again, and allow himself to get excited about more things that he does not at this time even know exist.
I just can't help but think of how differently this very young man has been raised from how my 14-year-old friend, the son of our friends. It makes me cry. Because, you know, I don't think my young friend is intrinsically more intelligent, curious than this young man. It's that his opportunities have been so very, very, very great and so very much encouraged in every way, by EVERYONE he interacts with, from his parents, his other relatives, his teachers, and even the friends of his parents. It's just so DAMNED UNFAIR. Every kid should have these opportunities to learn and be enabled to follow her - his curiosity wherever it leads him - her. That this is not so in this country is a crime.
He might have been 20. He wanted to know something about the Dominican Republic, but it took a while to figure out what it was. This was the story, as I finally got it:
He'd been in a taxi over the weekend and the driver had mentioned something that evidently hit the guy's curiosity organ hard. The driver had said something like the DR had the oldest medical school in this part of the world. He wanted to find out more information about that. For some reason this excited him deeply, though he's not a Dominican himself.
I just happened to know something on this order, because Vaquero shot a music video there for his "Cowboy Rumba" album, in the ruins of what was the first hospital in Santo Domingo's Old Town that contains the Western Hemisphere's first cathedral, first monastery, first hospital, first university, and its first court of law. "In declaring the city a world heritage site, UNESCO recognized Santo Domingo as the cradle of European civilization in the New World." I told him that Columbus's son had been charge there, while Columbus would go back to Europe looking for more money to fund further explorations (for pillage and rapine, nevermind).
This was the most difficult reference question I've ever answered because the guy's education had been so deficient. He hardly knew who Columbus was. His sense of geography nearly non-existant. A computer isn't the most helpful when it comes to maps for explaining these things, so we found an atlas in a book to assist spatial orientation. He had no idea what to do in a library.
But -- something had excited him, something about which he wanted to know more, and it brought him to a library! I hope in my attempts to figure out what it was he was looking for I didn't ruin that excitement. Finding a history around here that would focus on the Dominican Republic and its early years with the Columbus family isn't easy, whether in Spanish or English. His reading skills are low too. I looked for online things instead, and magazines like the National Geographic, that have lots of photos. Fortunately the library has the CD-ROM National Geographic. Over the years the magazine's done a fair amount on Santo Domingo (the capital of the DR). And he does know how to use CDs etc. So I think I left him with the means to look for whatever it was he was looking for. I don't know if I made him happier. But I hope his experience in the library was unthreatening and pleasant enough to have him come back again, and allow himself to get excited about more things that he does not at this time even know exist.
I just can't help but think of how differently this very young man has been raised from how my 14-year-old friend, the son of our friends. It makes me cry. Because, you know, I don't think my young friend is intrinsically more intelligent, curious than this young man. It's that his opportunities have been so very, very, very great and so very much encouraged in every way, by EVERYONE he interacts with, from his parents, his other relatives, his teachers, and even the friends of his parents. It's just so DAMNED UNFAIR. Every kid should have these opportunities to learn and be enabled to follow her - his curiosity wherever it leads him - her. That this is not so in this country is a crime.
Who Is President?
From Digby
[ I don't know if anyone's noticed, but George W. Bush is being disappeared from the presidential campaign and everyone's running against incumbent Hillary Clinton. Subtly, but relentlessly, the public psyche is being prepared to deny Junior ever existed. And it could work. For many different reasons, most Americans want nothing more than to forget George W. Bush was ever president. So, we see a very odd subliminal narrative taking shape in which the blame for the nation's failures of the last seven years is being shifted to Clinton (and the "do-nothing" Democratic congress) as if the Codpiece hasn't been running things since 2000. (Not that the radical wingnuts haven't always blamed the Clintons for everything, but the disappearing of Bush is a new element.)
I certainly don't blame the Republicans for trying to do it. It makes sense, since their boy is an epic failure and the original Clinton is still very present in people's minds. It will be quite a trick to pull off, but I can see the press already helping them do it. (Naturally.)
It's an interesting phenomenon and one for which I hope the Democratic strategists are prepared. Their underlying theme seems to be, "If you want change, vote Republican!" ]
[ I don't know if anyone's noticed, but George W. Bush is being disappeared from the presidential campaign and everyone's running against incumbent Hillary Clinton. Subtly, but relentlessly, the public psyche is being prepared to deny Junior ever existed. And it could work. For many different reasons, most Americans want nothing more than to forget George W. Bush was ever president. So, we see a very odd subliminal narrative taking shape in which the blame for the nation's failures of the last seven years is being shifted to Clinton (and the "do-nothing" Democratic congress) as if the Codpiece hasn't been running things since 2000. (Not that the radical wingnuts haven't always blamed the Clintons for everything, but the disappearing of Bush is a new element.)
I certainly don't blame the Republicans for trying to do it. It makes sense, since their boy is an epic failure and the original Clinton is still very present in people's minds. It will be quite a trick to pull off, but I can see the press already helping them do it. (Naturally.)
It's an interesting phenomenon and one for which I hope the Democratic strategists are prepared. Their underlying theme seems to be, "If you want change, vote Republican!" ]
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Legislation of the week: Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007
With little media attention, this bill passed the house of representatives by roll call vote on October 23. 404 ayes (219 D, 185 R), 6 nays (3 D, 3 R) , 22 no-shows. It was drafted by a democrat, rep. jane harman (D-CA). It now goes to the senate.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-1955
Does this mean you might be arrested for playing the Rolling Stones' "Street Fightin' Man?"
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
State Dept Fall Guy Resigns Over Private Contractors
i.e. over princeblackwatermercforces.
To be expected, the story doesn't say that.
That's o.k. though.
Because plenty of other stories DO say that.
We canNOT have mercenary military forces located within our national borders.
We canNOT.
[ NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. security contractor Blackwater said on Wednesday it supports recommendations by a State Department panel to boost oversight of contractors in Iraq. ]
Do you believe this for one second?
dems and all the rest of us really need to go after this over and over and over. It is an achilles heel that just about everybody understands.
If they don't just give 'em some of those grade b toga and sandal movies to watch.
She says.
Cynically.
To be expected, the story doesn't say that.
That's o.k. though.
Because plenty of other stories DO say that.
We canNOT have mercenary military forces located within our national borders.
We canNOT.
[ NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. security contractor Blackwater said on Wednesday it supports recommendations by a State Department panel to boost oversight of contractors in Iraq. ]
Do you believe this for one second?
dems and all the rest of us really need to go after this over and over and over. It is an achilles heel that just about everybody understands.
If they don't just give 'em some of those grade b toga and sandal movies to watch.
She says.
Cynically.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Not From The Onion
Check out the website of this government agency that since 2003 has been called "u.s. customs and border protection."
U.S. Government Partners with Disney to Welcome International Visitors
Multimedia ‘Portraits of America’ to be Featured in International Arrivals Areas, U.S. Embassies and Other Venues to Welcome Visitors to the United States.
U.S. Government Partners with Disney to Welcome International Visitors
Multimedia ‘Portraits of America’ to be Featured in International Arrivals Areas, U.S. Embassies and Other Venues to Welcome Visitors to the United States.
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